This is probably the closest we've gotten to Black Hat Guy behaving in what one would call the "classic" manner if one were completely insufferable. Antisocial self-interest! Randy finally remembered!

Of course, this being a day of the week, Randy's comic is full of problems. Some astute (ha ha ha) commenter pointed out in the previous thread that the inclusion of a script to post negative reviews seems counterintuitive at best. First, it somehow knows when he's staying at hotels, and it automatically assumes he'll like it. But then, since he dislikes hotels sometimes, he often has to go and manually change it. The conclusion that the aforementioned commenter came to is inescapable: the only reason the word "script" is included is so XKCD fanboys could nerdgasm over it.

Then we have panel 3. In this panel, Randy does this thing he often does where he points out the flaws in his plan, but doesn't quite seem to realize it. A single negative review won't drive anyone away from a place. It's pretty hard to find an establishment on Yelp that doesn't have at least one one-star review. Most frequently-reviewed places will have several. This doesn't have a noticeable effect on said establishment's popularity.

As Randy himself observes: "the odds of my review putting a hotel out of business are negligible." He doesn't seem to grasp that the odds of his review having any impact at all, let alone an impact significant enough that BHG is getting noticeably cheaper prices and having a noticeably easier time getting rooms, is also negligible. Perhaps if he were to employ a botnet to make hotels he likes suddenly look like roach-havens? But even then, the loss in revenues would cause a considerable hit in service quality. (Here is the part where people protest that it's just a comic and it's not supposed to make sense and where they probably suggest that I must not like (insert fantasy story here) because it has wizards in it or something. Can we just take that as said and move on?)

The rest of the comic after panel 2 is basically post-punchline dialog--not sure if he's ever done two whole panels of it before. You've got a name-drop of the tragedy of the commons to set up what I guess must be intended as a humorous exchange, and a line that you can tell Randy thought was very clever.

I do, however, like "The Tragedy of You're A Dick." That's a nice joke. Simple and completely silly, but nice.

Incidentally, if you obliterate the mysteriously boxless third panel, and get rid of Black Hat's dialogue in the final panel, the comic becomes a lot more streamlined. Not good, per se, but it's all excess fat.

I like how Man Who Is Not Black Hat Guy's feet dangle above the ground, like a child's. It is interesting how some one who criticizes the Monroe's idea is subtly portrayed as small and juvenile. I'm kidding, of course, I would never accuse Mr Monroe of subtlety.

This 'Tragedy of the Commons' name-drop, as a couple of other commenters have mentioned, really smacks of Randy's habit of stumbling upon wikipedia articles on things he finds clever/interesting and then using that newfound knowledge to make a shitty webcomic about it trying to appear clever.

The rest of us, however, got over these sorts of jokes after the first Intro to Political Science lecture, or after the first time we say that humorous cow-economics poster.

For someone who loves to blow the horn of science/mathematics constantly, telling us all how complex and deep it all is, he really doesn't make any effort whatsoever at applying this view to any other pursuit, so he ends up making jokes on history/political science/economics/literature at the intellectual level of a first-year common room.

I was having trouble articulating it in the post (so I didn't put it in) but I also got the impression the tragedy of the commons namedrop didn't really fit. I mean, yes, it's what he's describing, but why would you invoke that as a reason for doing what you're doing?

Wenceslas didn't massacre anyone - he was murdered by his brother's men. (He also wasn't a king, he was Duke of Bohemia - the pope gave him the "king" title after his death). There was a King called Wenceslas, but it wasn't the same guy (and it was 200-300 years later I think)

Tragedy of the Commons is the notion that humans are all antisocial bastards(*), incapable of practicing self-restraint for the good of the wider community and needing force from authority. It is often used as an excuse either for unfettered capitalism or a command economy, with the outcome being equally shitty in either case.

Its usually being nonsense notwithstanding, it has nothing to say about fraud or misrepresentation. Anyone can break the terms of a contract or break the law and try to get away with it - the TotC is about some arrangement granting sufficient freedom that abuse is not legislated against on the basis that people will act nicely.

(*) In fact, there are only two categories which will invariably carry out abusive behaviour: (i) Internet aspies like Randall who reduce human relationships to a series of robotic rules; (ii) big businesses as government regulation becomes so weak in the hope that various sectors become "self-regulating". Most individual men and women, OTOH, are not psychopaths.

OMG DID ANYONE ELSE READ 959? I LOLLED SO HARD MY LOLS WERE LOLOLOLOLING. GOD I SPIT MILK ALL OVER MY KEYBOARD WHEN I READ THIS COMMENT AND WOKE UP MY ROOMMATE BECAUSE I WAS MASTURBATING SO LOUDLY TO THIS COMMENT. HE TOLD ME TO STOP GETTING CHEETOS ON HIS DESK AND THEN I SHOWED HIM THIS COMMENT AND WE LITERALLY LOLD TOGETHER. LOLOLO.

This website's inhabitants argue against your final sentence. I have never seen such a group of obvious social "science" majors in my life!

You ought to be ashamed of yourselves, maligning the forces of intellectualism and liberalism with your foul, unaccredited accusations. Why, I bet you couldn't even make a graph to save your life! And calling a good man like Randall an "aspie" simply because you lack the intelligence to understand the beauty of his glorious mathematical mind - have you no shame?? As Cantor's proof did to real numbers, I shall do to you, demonstrating that most of you are irrational. I mean, have you SEEN his Megan comics?! Randall is a deeply sensitive, caring individual, and I'll not stand for you dragging his name through the mud! Could a man with "limited empathy with [his] peers" (Wikipedia) make such impassioned defenses of women (http://xkcd.com/385/)? Could he touch so many people with his poignant words (http://xkcd.com/162/)? I think not!

What a den of iniquity! What vile, loathsome snakes you are! I have half a mind to send you all bobcats! But no, you are beneath me. Instead I will find solace in the milky teats of my beloved Aquarian mail-order bride; as I make love to her, knowing how much she loves it, I will rest easy in the knowledge that I am better than you all in every way possible.

Why are people suggesting the latest comic is good? Because it sure isn't. More black hat guy, not doing anything particularly clever (or funny). Randall clearly heard the christmas carol, and thought 'Hmmm wouldn't it be funny if someone was singing that and someone else was like.... no he isn't good!!'

Latest comic is Randy going all "Lol, look how anti-social Black Hat guy is! He ruins peoples fun!" It doesn't even have anything to do with the actual King Wenceles and everything to do with "Hehe, let's be a jerk." Possibly it reflects a deeper desire to control people via destroying their expectations, but I'll refrain from going to "arm-chair" on Randy at this time. (removed and reposted due to a couple typos).

My eyes were also drawn to the last panel (or what I at the time thought were 2 panels), trying to decipher their meaning, because it didn't look like Fedex logo at all. The blue one looked like some sort of a face with big round eyes, and I correctly identified the orange one as Guy Fawkes. Then I read the comic from the beginning and was like "Fedex? That's kind of a stretch". And then went on my merry way.

Meh on the Subliminal one. Not awesome, not horrible. Would help if the FedEx logo looked like what he said, or if drug humor was his usual vein. Either way, it's not a horrible comic but not one that made me laugh really. It is a refreshing change of just trying to be odd without trying (unsuccessfully) to be clever.

@9:44- Zing, you win the internet. I have never been hit with such an awesome power of insult as your faggot remark. If I had a heart left, my blood would be pumping out the wound you gave it.

The FedEx logo has a hidden arrow in it: the negative space between the 'E' and the 'x' forms an arrow pointing to the right. This has associations with travel and movement, which is good because FedEx is a delivery company.

In this comic strip, Randall has jokingly pretended that he can't make out this simple hidden design because he instead makes out a much more complicated one. It is implied this is because he is on drugs, which are funny. Also part of the design is a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask. This is good because Guy Fawkes masks are cool and edgy on the Internet.

A script doesn't mean it's autonomous, it means he invokes it when he gets home and gives it an argument or two for what he wants to happen. You don't recreate your blog from scratch every time you want to say something different do you?

As for a single review... a lot of people specifically read the bad reviews and base their judgement on that. A single recent review that says "bed bugs" would ensure my girlfriend avoids all hotels within a 20 mile radius! Also a lot of hotels don't have hundreds or thousands of reviews. BHG is going for a small impact anyway. Is it going to make a difference to the hotel? No. Is there a slightly larger chance a room will be open next time he wants to go there? Yes.

your complaint about scripts does not actually resolve the problem with his use of scripts. sorry!

i also specifically read bad reviews and base my judgment on that, which is why i am quite certain this tactic wouldn't really do anything. in order for a solitary bad review to dissuade me, it needs to make it clear that the problem is endemic to the hotel and not merely a fluke or the individual reviewer's craziness. if a large number of reviews all mention the same problem, and that problem is something that might dissuade me (as opposed to, say, 'my complimentary champagne didn't arrive fast enough'), then i will probably look elsewhere.

and again: he specifically says that there are more vacancies (plural) and lower prices next time he visits, as the result of his single review. this is highly implausible. even if he only wants a slightly higher chance of a vacancy (which is not generally a problem for people who plan their trips in advance), the increased likelihood generated by his review is so negligibly small that he would need to be staying at dozens, if not hundreds, of hotels before he actually sees a benefit of a single extra vacancy. this is assuming that every time he tries to stay at a hotel he finds no vacancy; if you take into account the fact that the odds are pretty good he'll have a vacancy if he makes reservations in advance he may never actually see the benefit--that vacancy will merely be another open room in the same hotel.

What the hell is this?

Welcome. This is a website called XKCD SUCKS which is about the webcomic xkcd and why we think it sucks. My name is Carl and I used to write about it all the time, then I stopped because I went insane, and now other people write about it all the time. I forget their names. The posts still seem to be coming regularly, but many of the structural elements - like all the stuff in this lefthand pane - are a bit outdated. What can I say? Insane, etc.

I started this site because it had been clear to me for a while that xkcd is no longer a great webcomic (though it once was). Alas, many of its fans are too caught up in the faux-nerd culture that xkcd is a part of, and can't bring themselves to admit that the comic, at this point, is terrible. While I still like a new comic on occasion, I feel that more and more of them need the Iron Finger of Mockery knowingly pointed at them. This used to be called "XKCD: Overrated", but then it fell from just being overrated to being just horrible. Thus, xkcd sucks.

Here is a comic about me that Ann made. It is my favorite thing in the world.

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